'And good riddance, him,' growled Del. 'But bad death like bad life.'

'Why, how did he die?'

'Choke,' said Del, making a far-too-realistic noise to ill.u.s.trate. 'Yai Yai, she says he ate her baklava that she put a curse on. You say it in Australian, that curse.'

'Hope it chokes you?' I quoted. Del nodded. He bellowed to the daughter behind the counter to send us some lunch and went to make coffee. He is happy to allow his son to make that wishy-washy inferior espresso coffee with the Gaggia. But he makes the Greek coffee himself, as is proper for the host.

Meroe and I looked at each other.

'You, clearly, have things to tell,' she informed me.

'And you too.'

'After lunch,' she said.

Without asking, Del gave us a small heavy gla.s.s of red wine each. Meroe accepted a big white bowl of vegetable soup with the tiny fluffy noodles, knodlen, which Del calls pebbles. I ate my goulash, rich, fragrant and heavy, in small mouthfuls while I considered what Del had said. Choked to death. If Old Spiro's story was important, then Daniel had heard the very last account of it. I tore off a piece of my own pane di casa and mopped up garlicky paprika-flavoured sauce. Treasure-hunting witches and treasonous old men. What a world.

Still, it had goulash in it.

CHAPTER SIX.

I returned to Meroe's shop with the proprietor. The Sibyl's Cave is very small and crammed with whatever the working witch might need for any spell except those nasty voodoo ones involving dolls, which Meroe does not stock. Her view is that anyone who wants to cast that sort of spell can make their own poupee and overload their own karma without her a.s.sistance. It's not that she doesn't know how to curse, or objects to cursing if the reason is a virtuous one. She just doesn't like using dolls. I mentioned Mrs Pappas's curses as I was telling her about the death of Old Spiro.

'Oh, they're good,' she said admiringly, stroking her night-black cat Belladonna, who was occupying the arm of her big chair and looking inscrutable, a thing which black cats can do without even trying. 'Fine, strong, ancient curses, those.'

'Yes, and they seem to have worked,' I commented. 'If he choked before the priest got there to absolve him, he has gone to h.e.l.l.'

'Seems an appropriate destination,' murmured my witch. 'He'll like the company. Must be stuffed with n.a.z.is by now.

73.

They'll be having Bund meetings and trying to oust Satan by putsch. Which won't work,' she added.

'Which is why it is h.e.l.l,' I agreed.

Bella purred and angled her chin for a scratch. I brushed aside the hanging sh.e.l.ls of a charm to attract maritime luck and said, 'Well, that's it. What do you make of it?'

'Georgiana or the Old Spiro story?'

'Both. Either. I feel...hurt.'

'That's men for you,' sighed Meroe. 'I sometimes believe that is what they were designed for. I question the wisdom of the G.o.ddess, but perhaps she was distracted that day. He doesn't sound infatuated with this Georgie.'

'But she definitely has designs on him,' I objected. 'She would love to steal him from me.'

'Corinna, Corinna, one can't steal a person,' she chided me. 'Not unless they want to be stolen. People can be seduced only if they are seducible. If that is a word. You had no reason to doubt Daniel's love before Georgie turned up. You have no reason now. This other matter has clearly upset him. I'd leave it for a few days and see how he recovers. He must have got a severe shock.'

'He did,' I concurred.

'Well, then. People under stress behave badly, it's an axiom of witchcraft.'

'I suppose so,' I said, conscious of sounding like Jason. 'All right, then, what about your glut of witches?'

Meroe rubbed her hands over her face. Belladonna gave her a cool, pitying look and b.u.t.ted the witch's wrist with her nose.

'Yes, Bella, it is silly of me,' she confessed to the cat. 'But I don't like these rituals. It's not that they follow the left hand path deliberately, you understand, but they are...'

'Greyish?' I suggested.

'Grey,' she agreed. 'Tending to darkness. Perhaps it is just their pursuit of worldly wealth that bothers me. Corinna, do me a favour? Come with me tonight. They are having a working on Williamstown beach. I'd really value an uninvolved opinion.'

'Does this mean I have to take off all my clothes in public?' I demanded with deep suspicion.

'No. Only the pract.i.tioners will be skyclad. You just have to wear blue and stay silent.'

'I can do that,' I said. A night's sleep was something I cherished, but I could sacrifice it for my friend Meroe, who really was worried. And in any case, Daniel was not going to be in my bed. Which might make it far too empty for sleep.

'Thank you,' she said. 'Be blessed! I'll meet you in the atrium at eleven thirty. Wear blue or black, no jewellery or metal, seash.e.l.ls if you have any.'

I patted Belladonna, kissed Meroe on the cheek and fought my way out of the Sibyl's Cave, ducking under the hanging chimes and amulets in a jangle of sweet sounds. The Tibetan soul-changing bells over the door always got me, as they did anyone over one metre high, and their strange sound, which seemed to contain its own echo, accompanied me into the lane.

Back to Earthly Delights, where Jason and Kylie were holding the fort. The day had proceeded well. Most of the sweet things were gone. Jason was beginning the cleaning. Kylie was loading the remaining loaves into the racks and counting up the unsold.

'Not bad,' she told me. 'Like, Corinna, we nearly sold out of all the m.u.f.fins and the little cakes. Only eight loaves left.'

'Good,' I encouraged. 'You can take the banking on the way out. Jason? I'm going out with Meroe tonight so I need a nap. Can you factor in more m.u.f.fins and cakes for tomorrow?'

'Aye, aye, sir!' he said. 'Need to buy more ingredients. Sir!' 'Take a fifty out of my purse,' I told him, paying Kylie from the till. 'Then can I get him some new overalls?' asked Kylie. 'And some other clothes?' 'Yes, provided that you don't overspend,' I told her. 'Jason has to buy his own casual clothes and he doesn't earn much.' 'Because you don't pay me much, sir!' came the voice from the bakery, accompanied by a clanging of buckets. 'Quite right, Midshipman Jason!' I called back. 'Any time you want to renegotiate, say the word.' 'No problem here,' he replied hastily. Cheeky boy. Kylie giggled. 'Just a shirt, I thought, like, a good shirt, and maybe one of those...I don't know, though, maybe Goss'll come too.' She demonstrated indecision by standing on one foot. 'Just return Jason in good condition in time to do the baking,' I said and left them.

I had meant what I said about a nap, but when I laid myself down, I couldn't sleep. Do not drink cafe h.e.l.lenico if you want to close an eye any time soon, I knew that. After half an hour I got up and took Horatio with me to the roof garden. We sat contemplating tulips and drinking a gin and bitter lemon. I felt that it matched my mood better than the usual tonic.

The tulips were superb. They were scarlet and yellow, strong and upright. Some were splashed with red and white. Some were smooth, some ragged. Splendid. However, one can only spend a certain amount of time staring at tulips and I had spent it. The rest of the garden was blooming with spring flowers, the last of the freesias, the blossom on the linden tree, the profusion of those little mauve stars. The ground was watered by the ingenious recycling system which the original builder had installed, along with his waste-heat-dump temple of Ceres and his air-moisturising impluvium. Those old Romans knew about houses. Apparently they knew about steam, too, but they didn't need it, what with a thousand slaves ready to leap to it on command. Wondering what the world would have been like if the steam train had been invented two thousand years ago, I drifted off into a pleasant daydream.

Horatio woke me an hour later. It was time for his nap. I went down to my apartment and found a letter on the floor. It had evidently been pushed under the door. I opened it, not without trepidation. The last anonymous missive I had received had threatened to kill me. But this was written in pacific blue ink and just said 'Sweet Corinna, how I love you'. And that was a nice thought, too. I folded the half sheet of plain white paper and put it on my desk. I had a secret admirer. How very encouraging.

There being no prospect of sleep while the Greek coffee was working in my veins, I decided to give the apartment a good clean. After I had got out the bucket and the mop and the cleaning fluids, I decided against it, put them away again and sat down on my couch with my Jade Forrester and three Heavenly Pleasures chocolates. There are days when you need ferocious action, and there are days when you need a new detective story and a chocolate. Today the chocolates won.

I did manage to get five hours' sleep before the alarm went off and I rose to find some blue clothes, farewell Horatio and join Meroe in the atrium. She surveyed me carefully. I had left off my watch and was dressed simply in a dark blue tracksuit and backpack. She wore her usual black with a marvellous blue wrap, almost indigo shot through with paler tendrils like seaweed. She was carrying a large bag stuffed with I know not what which clanked slightly when she moved.

'Good,' she said. 'A blessing on our journey and our returning.' She flung a pinch of salt over our heads. Then she led the way to the lane where a bright green car was waiting. Meroe loaded us into it, told the driver, 'Yes,' and we drew out into the street.

'Williamstown beach,' said Meroe, and shut down. She does this. She just withdraws. As it is no use talking to her when she isn't there, I stared out of the window as Footscray Road flew past. I saw piles of shipping containers like Lego blocks, proclaiming strange ports-Murmansk, Rio de Janeiro, Haifa-and tall cranes straddling the trackway like daddy-long-legs.

I hadn't been to Williamstown since I was taken to the Williamstown festival perhaps five years earlier. Even then I hadn't explored, as I had been escorted by my annoyed then-husband James, who was there to judge a cooking compet.i.tion and was in the throes of extreme indigestion and a near-terminal fit of the grumps. This limits one's appreciation of landscape. But I remembered the greenswards down to the sea, the boathouses, the cannon on the foresh.o.r.e in case of invasion from Russia, the yachts from many nations all lined up along the marinas, and the ice cream, which was first rate. Whatever James had said.

It appeared there was more to Williamstown than the Esplanade and the pier. We swept around the Time Ball tower and went uphill to a point no different from any other that I could see, but Meroe told the driver, 'Here,' and she stopped the car. We got out. The driver was a tall, lanky young woman in a blue sarong and swimsuit.

'This is Neraia, our lifesaver,' Meroe introduced me.

'You must be freezing,' I commented, shaking her hand.

She shrugged. 'You get used to it,' she told me. 'Poseidon is my father, Galatea my mother. I like sea water.'

There didn't seem to be any ready reply to this.

Where were we? It looked prosperous. Big houses lined one side of the road. The other was a verge with trees and rough gra.s.s, leading down to a rocky coast. I had no idea that such wild landscape existed so close to the city. The wind had dropped. It was dead quiet. On the calm salty air, I could hear chanting, and smell incense.

'This way,' said Meroe, and led us across the turf to the sh.o.r.e.

The sea foamed and splashed on sharp broken boulders. This was the blacksoil plain, of course, the rocks would all be volcanic. Black basalt by the look of it, and if anyone intended to ask me to tippy-toe out onto that slippery knife-edged barrier, they had another think coming. But Meroe gestured to me to sit at the edge of the sea and I sat, able to see all that was going on and probably invisible to the eye in my dark blue garments. Neraia shed her sarong and waded into the sea.

There were twelve naked people in the water, pale as moonlight. I shivered in sympathy, but they seemed to feel no discomfort. They had formed a ring, hand in hand, and were chanting in an unknown tongue. 'Evoe! Evoe!' they called. 'Poseidon Evoe!'

It was cold and oddly boring as well as uncomfortable and interesting. I shifted my weight as different bits of my spine impacted the gravel I was sitting on. In fact, since nothing whatsoever seemed to be happening, I scooted uphill until I was sitting under a thrawn tree, where the ground was hard but not actively pointy. Three people on the sh.o.r.e were tending a small, hot fire, on which they were burning an incense that smelt seaweedy and musky. It was not a nice smell but it was compelling. The chant was heating up. Meroe was standing with her wrap drawn close over her head and her arms folded, concentrating hard, like a fisherman's wife watching for a returning boat.

The wind picked up. The waves creamed and then folded. There was a slap and splash of water. Out at sea the lights of the big ships moved slowly on their voyages out or home. And the sea existed, uninterested in these brief, fragile humans who could not survive underwater for more than a couple of minutes. Who were these importunate idiots, I wondered, to dare to call upon the lord of the sea? They could all be obliterated with one casual slap of a sea-monster's paw.

I didn't like my train of thought. I also didn't know where it had come from. I stood up. If Poseidon resented being summoned, I wanted to be out of the backwash when he annihilated the coven.

The chanting was rising to a shout. The figure in the centre, crowned with sh.e.l.ls, suddenly vanished and the whole ring was dragged underwater with him. Neraia slid forward like a seal. But they came up again, after a breath-catching interval, shedding water, gasping and laughing. Meroe stood like a highly disapproving pillar of salt as the coven waded ash.o.r.e and grabbed at wraps and towels and exclaimed at the cold.

The man with the crown of sh.e.l.ls was imposing. Solid, big, wide shoulders, a broad face with a black beard. I was nose to loin with him as he climbed the back. Nice loins, if a little chilled and shrunken. He laughed hugely and opened his hand to show us what Poseidon had sent him.

'Success!' he boomed. 'What do you say now, Meroe?'

'What I have always said, Barnabas,' she replied tartly.

'Where luna shines, there is silver,' he said.

In the palm of his large hand was a jewelled plate, fully the size of a cigarette packet. It was studded with precious stones. Cabochon, not faceted. Hard to tell colour in the moonlight but they might have been emeralds. It looked very old. A fragment of chain hung from each top corner. I wondered what it had been. Not the usual run of pendant, that was for sure. Meroe looked at it without touching.

'And how do you explain this?' she asked. I had never heard her voice so harsh. She was croaking like a crow with tonsillitis.

Barnabas laughed again. He would make a wonderful Father Christmas, I thought, a big jolly man in a red robe.

'Jealous, little witch?' he teased, and swung the object up out of Meroe's reach.

Just then a lot of things happened at once. Meroe stepped back and tripped, falling into me so that we tumbled together under my tree. Five, or perhaps more, men in, I swear, black clothes and black balaclavas attacked the coven in a running a.s.sault, moving very fast along the edge of the sea, leaping from rock to rock, and landing on Barnabas so hard that all the breath went out of him in an 'oof!'. Then they were gone. So was the pendant. I heard a car start and roar off into the night. Meroe and I untangled ourselves and drew away from Barnabas, who was getting his breath back. His accusing finger shot out.

'You!' he shouted at Meroe. 'You did this!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' she answered with the sort of chill which starts ice ages. 'I don't know who your attackers were but I suggest you dismiss this working properly and go home to scry for your treasure. As I shall do,' she said, withdrawing up the hill. He seemed about to follow, in which case he was going to get a kick on the shins, at least from me, but he thought better of it and turned back to soothe his offended coven.

'You take the car,' said Neraia to Meroe. 'I'd better talk to the nymphs. They don't like violence.'

She chose a place further away from the escalating argument on the sh.o.r.e. I saw her dive in, straight as an arrow. Meroe took the keys and we got into the car and moved off just as we heard sirens.

'Well, I can tell you one thing,' I said. 'That was the most unmagical magical thing I have ever seen.'

'Yes,' she said, turning the car into Melbourne Road. 'Odd, isn't it? There's such a lot of latent magic around that it's curling my hair, but none of it was in that working. Barnabas usually does better than that. Of course a lot of his success is pure personality. People like big, jovial, confident witches.'

'Yes, but, Meroe, what about the men in black? I saw them. Didn't you?'

'Oh yes,' she said airily, as we turned off Melbourne Road for the city. 'I saw them.'

'Who were they?'

'I don't know, as I told Barnabas. Some emanations from the underworld, perhaps.'

I didn't think so. Few emanations from the underworld say 'b.u.g.g.e.r!' when they slide on slippery rocks.

'They were humans,' I stated.

Meroe shrugged. 'Someone must have been talking,' she said. 'Nothing more likely with these loose-tongued, undisciplined witches. Mention the word treasure in a cellar at midnight and someone will hear it. They were organised, I'll say that for them. That was a textbook a.s.sault, along, in and out with the jewels and no one injured. Except Barnabas's pride, which could do with a puncture.'

'I have seen that sort of jewelled plate before somewhere,' I told her.

'Oh, so have I,' she said. 'It's an ephod. Read Exodus,' she said, and disappeared into one of her silences for the rest of the way home.

It was too late to read Exodus, but I put the Bible out on the table so I could check up on it after I finished baking. At least it was Friday, and I did not have to get up on Sat.u.r.day, because I close Earthly Delights for the weekend. There aren't a lot of people about in the city and I need the rest. Best Fresh, I had no doubt, would be operating. With only one worker and a shop a.s.sistant, it wouldn't cost the chain a lot to keep the shop open. But there it was.

I was coming down from all that maritime excitement. A few hours' sleep would have been nice, and I was only going to get two. I fell into bed and grabbed them while I could.

Four am and I rose and did the zombie routine which gets Horatio fed, me washed and dressed and partially caffeine-enriched and down to the bakery without the intervention of any higher intelligence. Such as it is. Jason was already there, G.o.ddess bless him, the mixers were all on and the orders book laid out on the counter.

'Captain on deck!' he said, springing to his feet and saluting.

'Carry on, Mr Midshipman,' I said.

'Permission to make an observation, sir?'

'Go ahead,' I said warily.

'You look like c.r.a.p, sir!'